5 ms·

>Just everything in Europe is tiny. T i n y. And frankly, it's not that much cheaper over here either. I would argue the other way, as a European, I've been to

by sspiff 3y ago

>Just everything in Europe is tiny. T i n y. And frankly, it's not that much cheaper over here either. I would argue the other way, as a European, I've been to multiple places Asia and the Middle East and everything is either the same size or smaller than in Europe. I haven't been to Africa or the Americas, but I'd say from my perspective, that things in the US are just extra large.

Aurornis 3y ago
> I would argue the other way, as a European, I've been to multiple places Asia and the Middle East and everything is either the same size or smaller than in Europe. The parent commenter moved from America to Europe, so the size difference is obvious. I agree that many parts of Asia have similar size standards. Things in America are just very large.
- jorvi 3y ago
  > Things in America are just very large. Maybe harsh, but North Americans just love to consume consume consume planetary consequences be damned. Per capita CO2 emissions (aka carbon footprint): - 15.5 Canada (?!) - 14.5 USA - 8.5: China - 3.3: Vietnam - 15.5 Australia - 3.7: Sweden - 8.2: Germany - 7.8: Netherlands - 5.5: Italy - 1.9: Morocco - 6.8: South Africa - 3.6: Mexico - 2.2: Brazil If you live at nearly x2 the CO2 footprint of West/Central Europeans, and above x4 for most of the planet, it gets a lot easier to live large. Of course, North America having a lot of space geographically makes it easier to build big, and there is probably a ton of other factors as well. But it is an important thing to note.
  - throwaway44023 3y ago
    Canada is high probably because of the sparse northern population that uses fossil fuels year-round to get heat, transport and electricity.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    You missed Australia, at 15.25. Probably because they have all those coal reserves, and like houses as big as Americans.
    - jorvi 3y ago
      Edited in, thanks!
  - tmnvix 3y ago
    I assume these are tonnes per year. Worth noting that the average vehicle driven the average distance per year in the US accounts for around 4000kg of CO2. Quite the contribution.
sandworm101 3y ago
There are many reasons behind this. It isn't just a fashion for bigger things. I chalk much of it up to differences in work culture. My European friends often talk about pickup up food on the way home from work, dropping in at a store to buy ingredients for dinner. I don't have time to shop like that. My food run is once a week. That means more food in a bigger fridge. They also go out to eat far more than we in North America. When work is busy I can easily go a month, sometimes months, without eating at sit-down restaurant. That is unheard of across much of Europe. Last time I was in Europe at a friend's place they asked where I wanted to go for breakfast. Breakfast? I don't need to pay someone else to fry me an egg.
- bluGill 3y ago
  > Breakfast? I don't need to pay someone else to fry me an egg. Yet in the US there are a lot of restaurants open for breakfast. Some of them are not open any other part of the day. In short what is your personal culture and what is really US vs Europe? I think you are correct the in Europe people shop more often, but I'm not sure we eat out that much differently as a whole - people who eat out eat out a lot, while people who don't don't.
- lxgr 3y ago
  > When work is busy I can easily go a month, sometimes months, without eating at sit-down restaurant. That is unheard of across much of Europe. It's absolutely not. Doing one grocery run per week is entirely possible, and fresh food often doesn't last long beyond that anyway. > Last time I was in Europe at a friend's place they asked where I wanted to go for breakfast. Breakfast? I don't need to pay someone else to fry me an egg. You're generalizing from one experience in Europe to an entire continent. Going out for breakfast is very unusual in the places in Europe I've lived in. I don't doubt that it's common elsewhere, though. Personally, I've been to breakfast restaurants in the US much more often than in Europe.
- noduerme 3y ago
  The subtext of your post points more toward food culture than work culture. I've noticed most Americans eat to fuel themselves. Europeans eat to enjoy food and as a reason to spend time with other people. Often, going to dinner with people in America and they're all done eating in 5 minutes... I've barely taken a few bites. Friends call me a "slow eater". Whereas in other countries, dinner can last a couple hours. It's not just about your work schedule, but about how you regard your free time and what your relationship is with food. I've had some people use having children as an excuse for why they eat so fast, but I've seen people in Europe or Latin America take their young children to dinner and those kids behave and sit at the table and listen. Such a thing is almost unbelievable to American parents. I blame puritanism for the lack of interest in food, sure; but the emphasis on excusing it with the pressing need to work is funny because it's like a defense of joylesssness.
scythe 3y ago
When I (American) had an apartment in Wuhan, the fridge was not particularly small and our 3-bedroom apartment didn't feel cramped. The beds were hard, but normal size. The bathroom was a little weird — no separation of the shower — but not particularly small. There was a laundry machine but no oven.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Ya, same in Beijing. The bathroom was also wet room, which is probably just an economy. The laundry machine was in the bathroom, my wife had to buy an external oven because she liked baking. But these were considered luxury by Chinese standards, older housing built before the 90s could get weird, like no hot water and instead you have a tank that needs to activated a half hour before your shower.
  - bouncing 3y ago
    The "wet room" thing is in Korea too. I've been told it's for easy cleaning. You just pull the sprayer off the shower and splash the whole room like you're at a car wash. Having said that, the person who told me that was not Korean.
    - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
      It’s true, cleaning is easy, although I imagine they don’t last that long since I can’t see the grout keeping up without a lot of maintenance. At least it’s not a shower over a squat toilet, those are the worst.
bouncing 3y ago
> I haven't been to Africa or the Americas, but I'd say from my perspective, that things in the US are just extra large. That's probably it. I've also been to New Zealand, and everything was smaller there too. Though still not as small as stuff in Europe. Cars are where it holds the most true. I told my American friend we're thinking of getting a Mazda CX-5. His reaction was, "why so small?" I told my Portuguese tutor I was considering the same car. He asked why we needed something so large.

by sspiff 3y ago

Aurornis 3y ago

> I would argue the other way, as a European, I've been to multiple places Asia and the Middle East and everything is either the same size or smaller than in Europe. The parent commenter moved from America to Europe, so the size difference is obvious. I agree that many parts of Asia have similar size standards. Things in America are just very large.

jorvi 3y ago
> Things in America are just very large. Maybe harsh, but North Americans just love to consume consume consume planetary consequences be damned. Per capita CO2 emissions (aka carbon footprint): - 15.5 Canada (?!) - 14.5 USA - 8.5: China - 3.3: Vietnam - 15.5 Australia - 3.7: Sweden - 8.2: Germany - 7.8: Netherlands - 5.5: Italy - 1.9: Morocco - 6.8: South Africa - 3.6: Mexico - 2.2: Brazil If you live at nearly x2 the CO2 footprint of West/Central Europeans, and above x4 for most of the planet, it gets a lot easier to live large. Of course, North America having a lot of space geographically makes it easier to build big, and there is probably a ton of other factors as well. But it is an important thing to note.
- throwaway44023 3y ago
  Canada is high probably because of the sparse northern population that uses fossil fuels year-round to get heat, transport and electricity.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  You missed Australia, at 15.25. Probably because they have all those coal reserves, and like houses as big as Americans.
  - jorvi 3y ago
    Edited in, thanks!
- tmnvix 3y ago
  I assume these are tonnes per year. Worth noting that the average vehicle driven the average distance per year in the US accounts for around 4000kg of CO2. Quite the contribution.

sandworm101 3y ago

There are many reasons behind this. It isn't just a fashion for bigger things. I chalk much of it up to differences in work culture. My European friends often talk about pickup up food on the way home from work, dropping in at a store to buy ingredients for dinner. I don't have time to shop like that. My food run is once a week. That means more food in a bigger fridge. They also go out to eat far more than we in North America. When work is busy I can easily go a month, sometimes months, without eating at sit-down restaurant. That is unheard of across much of Europe. Last time I was in Europe at a friend's place they asked where I wanted to go for breakfast. Breakfast? I don't need to pay someone else to fry me an egg.

bluGill 3y ago
> Breakfast? I don't need to pay someone else to fry me an egg. Yet in the US there are a lot of restaurants open for breakfast. Some of them are not open any other part of the day. In short what is your personal culture and what is really US vs Europe? I think you are correct the in Europe people shop more often, but I'm not sure we eat out that much differently as a whole - people who eat out eat out a lot, while people who don't don't.
lxgr 3y ago
> When work is busy I can easily go a month, sometimes months, without eating at sit-down restaurant. That is unheard of across much of Europe. It's absolutely not. Doing one grocery run per week is entirely possible, and fresh food often doesn't last long beyond that anyway. > Last time I was in Europe at a friend's place they asked where I wanted to go for breakfast. Breakfast? I don't need to pay someone else to fry me an egg. You're generalizing from one experience in Europe to an entire continent. Going out for breakfast is very unusual in the places in Europe I've lived in. I don't doubt that it's common elsewhere, though. Personally, I've been to breakfast restaurants in the US much more often than in Europe.
noduerme 3y ago
The subtext of your post points more toward food culture than work culture. I've noticed most Americans eat to fuel themselves. Europeans eat to enjoy food and as a reason to spend time with other people. Often, going to dinner with people in America and they're all done eating in 5 minutes... I've barely taken a few bites. Friends call me a "slow eater". Whereas in other countries, dinner can last a couple hours. It's not just about your work schedule, but about how you regard your free time and what your relationship is with food. I've had some people use having children as an excuse for why they eat so fast, but I've seen people in Europe or Latin America take their young children to dinner and those kids behave and sit at the table and listen. Such a thing is almost unbelievable to American parents. I blame puritanism for the lack of interest in food, sure; but the emphasis on excusing it with the pressing need to work is funny because it's like a defense of joylesssness.

scythe 3y ago

When I (American) had an apartment in Wuhan, the fridge was not particularly small and our 3-bedroom apartment didn't feel cramped. The beds were hard, but normal size. The bathroom was a little weird — no separation of the shower — but not particularly small. There was a laundry machine but no oven.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Ya, same in Beijing. The bathroom was also wet room, which is probably just an economy. The laundry machine was in the bathroom, my wife had to buy an external oven because she liked baking. But these were considered luxury by Chinese standards, older housing built before the 90s could get weird, like no hot water and instead you have a tank that needs to activated a half hour before your shower.
- bouncing 3y ago
  The "wet room" thing is in Korea too. I've been told it's for easy cleaning. You just pull the sprayer off the shower and splash the whole room like you're at a car wash. Having said that, the person who told me that was not Korean.
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    It’s true, cleaning is easy, although I imagine they don’t last that long since I can’t see the grout keeping up without a lot of maintenance. At least it’s not a shower over a squat toilet, those are the worst.

bouncing 3y ago

> I haven't been to Africa or the Americas, but I'd say from my perspective, that things in the US are just extra large. That's probably it. I've also been to New Zealand, and everything was smaller there too. Though still not as small as stuff in Europe. Cars are where it holds the most true. I told my American friend we're thinking of getting a Mazda CX-5. His reaction was, "why so small?" I told my Portuguese tutor I was considering the same car. He asked why we needed something so large.